A Message of a Memory
by supermagicwater
Summary: Detective Crocker hears a knocking at her office door. Is the woman who enters an opportunity to shed light on a mysterious past? Or is she trouble in a tight dress? Noir style AU. JanexRoxy


There was a knock on my office door, startling me out of my shallow sleep. The knock couldn't have come at a worst time. Pieces were coming together for me on this new case and a plan was almost in reach when I was woken up. As much as I would have liked to turn them away, I knew that they must've had something important to share to brave the storm outside.

I took my feet off my desk and said, "Come in."

A woman strolled in, bringing with her the storm from outside. She was a tall drink of water, probably because the amount of rain her clothes had absorbed could produce at least a glass full. She shrugged off her trench coat as I nodded to the coat hanger by the door. She had on one of those strapless numbers, a bit too glitzy for my tastes. The lights in my office were dim, so this woman glowed red and blue in the light of the restaurant sign outside. As she sat down in front of my desk, I switched on my desk lamp to get a better look of her face. My suspicions were confirmed as I immediately knew who she was.

Her face was damp from the rain and possibly from tears. She brushed her wet bangs out of her eyes and said, "You must help me Detective Crocker. My dear friend has been murdered. It was made to seem like a suicide, but I know better." She sighed and smiled. "We were a great pair, we were. Little C and Big Roxy – lighting up stages all over this city with our knockout beauty and talent to match. A little singing, a little dancing, you know the drill. She'd start us off, - quiet, understated – then I'd come out with the big guns. The – you know – the 'baDUM, baDUM, baDUM'." She shook her shoulders back and forth in a suggested manner. How this dame didn't have a wardrobe malfunction in the middle of her sashaying, only Gog could know.

I was surprised at her being sober for once. I guess seeing a dead loved one is as good of a kick in the pants one needs to sober up, at least until she finds more comfort drowning in the void of alcohol than in facing reality.

"I'm willing to take this case, Ms..."

"Lalonde. But you already knew that, Detective Crocker. Or should I say, Mr. Dark and Mysterious Mustachioed Man? Hiding in the shadows at the club, trying to get some dirt on little ol' me?"

Embarrassed that my disguise had failed me I tried to explain."I was just trying to -"

"Trying to what? Trying to hide the fact you wanted to watch two gorgeous woman doing such astounding things that not even the written word could comprehend?

"No, I was-"

"Trying to become Big Roxy's number one fan?" She wiggled her eyebrows.

"No-"

She was starting to annoy me, cutting in any time I tried to talk. If she had nothing more to contribute to the case, I was happy to see her leave."Ms. Lalonde -"

"If you wanted to know more about me, you could have just asked."

"- if you don't have any more information about this case, then please -"

"That was hardly a question, Jane. But..." I gave her an angry look, which failed to shut her up. "No, no. I'll wait. You must have something to ask me, or else you wouldn't stalk every one of mine and Calliope's..." She stopped to take a deep breath, probably remembering why she came to me in the first place. She composed herself, and flashed me some pearly whites (I couldn't bring myself to call that pathetic thing a smile).

As my rage slowly subsided, I said, "Why shouldn't I have hid my identity while I gathered information about you? For all I knew, you could have been a mass murderer or a crime lord, here to enact revenge or right some violent wrongs. Sauntering into the city like you owned the damn place, with no connections or any remnants of a past to your name. I wouldn't be a very good gum shoe if I didn't let my curiosity take over at least once in a while. So I asked around, and yes, went to a few of your shows. Heard that you claimed to have "retrograde amnesia", but I found that to be less than believable."

"Ignorance is bliss, after all. Isn't it Jane?"

She kept calling me by my first name to get on my nerves, but I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of annoying me to get the upper hand.

"What exactly are you trying to forget, Ms. Lalonde?" Her face turned serious, but just as suddenly, went back to her carefree appearance. She waved the question away, like she was a newfangled cleaning machine and the question was just a pile of dirt to sweep under the rug.

"Not everyone's a mystery to be solved, Jane. But you would be attracted to that, wouldn't you? Being something of an anomaly yourself?"

I saw what she was trying to do, trying to get me to reveal something I would regret telling her. So I stayed silent. Tried not to let her push any more of my buttons.

"I had to do some digging of my own, of course. Always worrisome when you've got a stalker on your hands. Especially one with such a..." She stifled a laugh. "..._clever_ disguise. One which you never seem to take off outside of your office. Is it just for precautions sake, or is it something a little deeper, Detective Jane?"

I stayed silent.

"Look, I wouldn't be here if I didn't trust you, and I know you wouldn't even entertain the idea of taking my case if you didn't trust me. We're in the same boat here; we have the same troubles. You're a good person, and I just hoped you would see me in the same way." She stood up and turned to leave.

Ms. Lalonde got to me; had a way of digging deep under my skin like the sliver she was. So I fessed up. "Someone...someone's bound to follow me on one of my stakeouts, as you showed to be true. And..." Ms. Lalonde stopped and turned to face me. "...and I think it reminds me of someone I was close to. My father, to be specific. I put it on, and it's like the good old days. I can still smell the freshly baked cake with this fake nose, and there's probably still some left over crumbs stuck in this moustache."

She made an exaggerated disgusted face. We shared a laugh, but I still felt a bit wary of telling her everything. Had those "good old days" that I had so lovely put, ever happen? Could I tell her I actually remembered close to nothing of my father, and that I wore this disguise to get a flicker of something – anything – that could lead me back to him? Could I tell her when I pictured his face it drew a blank, and that any photos had his face maliciously scratched out? Would she believe me? And if she did, would I just be inviting more trouble to walk through my door?

But there was something I had no right to keep from her.

"Ms. Lalonde -"

"Roxy, if you please."

"Okay, Roxy, then. I know I shouldn't go on my gut feeling about this, and that I really should acquire more evidence about you and the case, but I feel like there's some connection between us and..." I caught myself rambling and sighed. "I had started to investigate this murder before you asked for my help and...I'm positive Calliope was killed by Lord English. He can't help but leave a spiral drawn from the victim's blood at the crime scene. This murder also seems more personal than the others." I paused, buying me some time before I had to pull Lord English's message from my drawer. "I found this scarf at the crime scene, along with a note attached of a crudely drawn picture of...actually, I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to be. This scarf... was used to hang her, and like you said, to make it seem like a suicide. Does it look familiar to you?" She draped the striped scarf around her hands, twisting it around sadly, than dropped it back on my desk.

"I don't recognize it. I wished I did, but I just...can't."

I recognized the face she was making while staring at the scarf. Frustration, mixed with a little sadness. A face waiting for a flicker of familiarity from an object where there was none. An object forgotten and lost in time, and perhaps from a different time entirely. Lord English had left a similar message to me. It was in the form of a mustachioed disguise and a ransom note. The note said they had sent my father far away, and I would never be able to contact him (not that I could remember my father, which would make contacting him very difficult). After that, I investigated more into the person who was my father. I found out many details about his life, my favourite one being that his love for baked goods and jokes were quite like my own. In a strange way, my investigations into his disappearance had caused him to reappear into my life.

Roxy caught my troubled look, and looked more distressed. Thinking we had come to the same conclusion, I said "Roxy, I've had some experience with Lord English, and if this is one of his personal vendettas, than I'm afraid you may be next."

She didn't react the way I thought. Smoothly and quickly, she pulled a gun from a holster hidden in the leg of her dress and cocked it. "I was ready to kill a bitch before, but now I'm fucking livid. I might have to point Little Roxy," she gave her gun an auditory smooch, "at Lord English myself, so I can be a witness to his demise."

I thought she might have just flipped her wig at the news, but not anything like this.

"Roxy, if you want to take Lord English and his Felt Crew down, it would probably be best to go about it a different way. Perhaps a more legal way? And perhaps even...together?"

"Jane, you're a genius! Two heads are better than one and all that. Plus, if you were thinking I was going to go in without a plan, you'd be dead wrong." She rubbed her hands together, "Okay, let's get brainstorming! Pass me the scotch, Detective!"

"Scotch?"

"A hard-boiled private detective such as yourself must have some scotch around..." She walked over to my side of the desk, opening anything with a knob. I got up and stood back as she searched, not wanting an accidental elbow to the stomach.

"Um..."

"No scotch? You're adorable, Janey."

"I'm not adorable. I'm a hard-boiled detective. I mean, at least somewhat hard? Like, harder than soft-boiled, I'd say. Or maybe sunny side up? Definitely not scrambled. "

She abruptly stopped her search for alcohol, and walked over to me.

"Oh, but you are adorable, Jane." Roxy planted two kisses on either side of my face, complete with a mocking "Muh" sound. With her hands still firmly grasping both sides of my face, she leaned in close to me and lowered her voice. "Whispering over in the corner about how to cook eggs, trying to keep your guard up to appear harder than you are. So fucking cute." I felt her hot breath on my skin as her mouth inched closer to mine. Her black lips were like a black hole, and I was ready and willing to be pulled in at any moment.

I closed my eyes and felt her mouth move as she whispered, "It's not safe here to talk. Your office has been bugged. I found a hidden microphone underneath your desk when I was "looking" for the booze. We should meet at a secure location, perhaps my dressing room at the Midnight Club? I've found bugs there myself, but they were badly designed and easy to rewire. Now they receive signals from the All Ambient Noise, All The Time radio station. I'll leave, and then you can come in a few hours to make sure no one is on to us." She kissed me – a quick brush of the lips, and then left, leaving me to weather through an emotional storm of excitement and uncertainty.


End file.
